Week In Review

Saturday, December 28, 2013

House Pictures

We've spent so much time packing, hauling, & unpacking that I've only taken a few quick photos that I shared, mostly, on Facebook. I thought it was time I updated here & took a few more quick photos of the other rooms before family members go crazy waiting to see the interior of our new house! I just have to warn you though, some of the rooms are trashed in the photos because they've only had boxes dumped in them. Other rooms were in need of a tidy up, but since everyone but myself was in a shower somewhere they were left messy for the sake of getting the photos taken before the timer on my pressure cooker went off. I'm pretty sure if I hadn't been there when it beeped Mr S might have cried, he was absolutely ravenous!

So let's start at the beginning, shall we? Kind of. This is the hall that leads to the front door, thus the sun shinning in the door despite it being 7pm. Yes, it's a lovely wooden floored entryway, I love wood floors, Mr S not so much. We have a few of both here so we're both happy. I had some shelves here under the photos on the left, but I needed them to get a child's room organised so they were moved. The hall is huge in both directions. The former owner had an old fashioned sewing machine sitting there, amongst other things. This is also the hallway people get lost in because it goes in 4 directions. It's the inner maze of the house. We've had several people call out, "I'm lost now, where on earth am I!" And one of the boys has gone to fetch them.

On the right are 2 doorways, both of which go into the library. It's not quite unpacked completely yet, but none of those boxes have books in them & none of them actually go in there. They've just not been hauled to their final destination spots yet. There's a fire place on the front half of the room, which was used. I hauled the wood out of the room because it's currently far too warm to be bothered having a box of wood next to the stove. The shelf there is built in, & that's actually my sewing table, but we had the guinea pig on it when we first moved in. Our current yard is missing a gate over the driveway & Morgan was terrified to have Nutmeg outside. I can't blame him after the last time his guinea pigs were outside of the gated yard. Anyway, back to the room. The only big downer about that particular room is that those front windows you're staring at don't open.

This is the other half of the room! Yes, it has a reverse heat pump hanging on the wall there. None of those boxes have books in them either, they just have a few bits here & there that need to be emptied & put on the correct shelf or room so I can officially haul them out. Not sure we'll actually school in that room, but then again if it's a cold day & there's a lovely fire going..

Excuse the mess, but that's actually rather clean! If you go the opposite way down that long hall you'll find Morgan's room. He decided he wanted a single bed instead of bunks, so the top bunk will go in the library for a "day bed" for now until we find a couch to put in there. His room is smaller then the last one he had, but wait until you see where all the lego is..

And that's where my shelves went from the hall. I stacked them up to make a nifty little shelf in his room to store all his building stuff on. I'm pretty sure he owns just about every possible building toy out there. In fact when I asked him to give me the box of K'nex we this long confusiong conversation about the Meccana that's in the red & green box on the shelf. I kept thinking it was more K'nex! The brown cabinet on the floor came with us too & holds more building toys like Snap Circuits. Behind the door is a built in closet. Across the hall from his room is one of our bathrooms, it's the original bathroom to the house, but it was also occupied by someone enjoying a luxurious bath. We need to fix the door to that bathroom, someone put it on backwards so you have to go into a very dark room & go behind the door to find the light switch.

Down the hall from Morgan's room is Jayden's mess er room. Seriously, I'm pretty sure everything he was suppose to put neatly on top of the boxes is on the floor & clearly no one made beds this morning. Don't ask about the semi dead looking giraffe in front of the window, it's best not to ask questions you don't wanna know answers too.. Jayden actually picked this room out well before we were certain we were getting this home. Not because it was bigger but because it has blue walls, maroon curtains, & red & white stripes on the wall. He's rather smitten with the Union Jack & all things British. Thus he really wanted the room!

There's another room after Jayden's, but I have no photos of it & a huge hall cupboards with lots of games loaded in it & stuff. It's at that point if you make the wrong turn people get confused. If you keep going straight you end up by the master bedroom. Which is enormous. We've never had a master bedroom where we haven't had to worry about hitting shins or knees on the bed as we walked from one side to the other.

I love the french doors in there, but they have no screen door attached so we can't actually open them when we're not in the room. And I'm certainly not game to sleep with them open as I don't fancy a possum waking me up in the middle of the night. There's also a wardrobe that runs the entire length of the room at the foot of the bed. It's amazing to have that much space to put clothing, not that we can even fill more then a quarter of it. Yes, in the first picture that was a bathroom that was off the side of the room. Our last master bedroom had one too, but it was triangular & very tiny. We're rather spoiled with the size of this one though!

Next up, bypassing the side door & another entry way, is the laundry room. It's extraordinarily large compared to my last one. I couldn't have the door open & access most of the room, but it worked for what we needed. This one has a bathroom in it {door on the right} complete with shower. Excuse the blur in the photo there..

Not the best photo, but that counter top is big enough to hold laundry for everyone, plus the bathroom & kitchen piles. Then there's cupboards both up high & down low. We're not lacking for storage in this house. I forgot to take a photo of it, but there's a funny cupboard under our stairs, which the boys love for a variety of reasons, which is huge too. And yes, there is a hole in the wall above my washer {first photo}, the former owner had a dryer & that's the vent. I haven't owned a dryer in 7 years, all though we debated one this past winter, so we need to cover the vent.

Across from the laundry room are stairs that take us to our Rumpus Room. It's a lovely big room that needs some privacy curtains hung because I'm pretty sure if I can see into other people's yards & homes they can probably do the same... The big white table, which doesn't look huge in the photo, against that wall is a lego table that came with the home. The two big drawers are full of lego & there are shelves on the side. The boxes on top have lego that Morgan needs to put in the drawers. The table is so big that it had to be taken apart to get back upstairs! The white "closet" in the corner also came with the house.

The other side of the room, a little neater, but boxes that still need to be unpacked. It's quite noisy up there thanks to the uncarpeted floor, I'm thinking we need a few throw rugs up there to help reduce the noise! And no, I have no idea why that shelf is laying on it's back, probably because I debated taking it downstairs to a child's room, but then moved on to something else..

There's also a built in workspace for the computer desks. It looks a little crowded due to the angle I took it in, but it's actually easily spacious enough for two people over there at once. Another window that needs some curtains in it, not that we can see much out that one.. mostly the trees that line our property.

The kitchen is beside the laundry & the stairs are out there too. Nothing quite like walking through the kitchen & finding someone sailing down the stairs on a mattress. Good thing we have a spare one, huh? Excuse the mess sin the kitchen, I really was making dinner! We found two boxes for the kitchen upstairs earlier today & clearly I never unpacked them.

Again, ignore my mess I was making cheater burritos. I'm loving the double ovens, all though I've only had need to use one thus far! The pantry is walk in & currently a lovely mess. There's a nifty light that senses you moving & pops on, which seems all grand & wonderful until a child leaves the pantry wide open & the thing goes nutters when you walk in the kitchen. Yes, I have more drawers then cupboards, but they hold heaps as each drawer has another drawer inside it except for the ones under the microwave which was wonderfully deep for cups & stacks of plates.

The window over the kitchen counter has a lovely view. I should have opened the blind before snapping the photo! Those wooden boxes there are flower boxes with things growing in them & there's a lovely wall covered in ivy. It blocks the neighbor's house from view & gives us our own private oasis there.

Our lovely new spacious dining room, which I'd like to note does not have pink carpet upon the floor. Who does that kinda weird thing?! Apparently the same kinda person who builds triangular bathrooms. The doors there go out back to a patio, & that window has a lovely view too..

Not the greatest picture, & it needs a little tidying up, but tada. There's some amazing aloe growing out there, ferns, grapes, etc. It's more of the wall covered in ivy which gives us a much better view then the neighbors backyard, which is full of rusty old cars. And yes, the hose was on, Mr S was out on the patio watering the dog.

The other side of our dining room, I told you it was big! We could probably fit another 3 tables in there. The cupboard with the 3 tall doors will hold all our craft supplies that were formerly housed in our school room. The cupboards on the other corner has a built in ironing board. Yes, really, along with a timed outlet incase you forget to turn off your iron after putting it away. Which is unlikely because the only thing I tend to iron is material for quilting. Mr S doesn't wear permanent press to work unless it's a really special occasion, he really hates dress clothes.

Ignore the dirty guinea pig cage, she still comes inside at night until we gate the driveway. This is the covered patio that is outside those sliding doors. It's also huge, that table use to take up most of the space in our former dining room! And yes, we put our deep freeze outside.

The other side of the patio, can you tell the piggie cage was in the middle?! Yeah, I should have moved it, but I'm allergic to the guinea pig so I avoid touching her stuff when I can. And no, I don't generally hang empty eskies from plant hangers, but it rained on that one & when I hung it up to dry it got rained on again! So it remains hanging up. The lovely potted flowers were left behind by the former owner, one needs a good bit of weeding/cleaning up around it.

And that's the best picture I got of the back yard before the timer on my pressure cooker went off. What you can't see are a couple of fruit trees by the back fence, a lovely sand pit with half a clubhouse build over it, a garden shed, a chicken coop, a raspberry patch, & a garage. Now, to finish unpacking & mow the lawn!